


Fantasy and Microchips

by Kalcifer



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings Realization, Other, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-01-03 12:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21179258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalcifer/pseuds/Kalcifer
Summary: Five times Mako hacks things accidentally because of Cass, and one time it's intentional.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by some excellent art by @drowzydruzy on Twitter, the person whose art got me into this ship in the first place. [See it here,](https://twitter.com/drowzydruzy/status/1147055020619309056) and then go look at the rest of their art too. Maybe after reading the fic, though.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako learns something about the nature of his powers, again. Sometimes he really wishes his school had spent less time being evil and more time teaching.

Mako wasn’t sure when it started.

Which, okay, yes, did sound kind of bad. In his defense, he was suddenly living with six younger versions of himself and also Lazer Ted. Electronics behaving weirdly was practically the norm.

He only really noticed it after joining the Rapid Evening. He’d managed to secure a closet for himself that none of the others had found, and was taking full advantage of it by checking his email without seven people immediately asking who he was talking to.

Most of it was boring. Lots of mailing lists he’d signed up for on Counterweight and never bothered to unsubscribe from, notifications from pet raising sites, that sort of thing. But there was also a message from Cass.

Mako brightened. Their messages had been getting scarcer over the past two years, politics consuming more and more of their time. Mako had resorted to saying increasingly outrageous things to guarantee they’d respond at all.

_Don’t be ridiculous_, this latest email read, _of course getting a limb cut off hurts. You don’t suddenly lose all the nerves connected to the limb with the limb itself. Besides, haven’t you heard of phantom limb pain? You can absolutely feel pain in your leg if your leg is gone._

_I don’t know why you’re bothering me with this, anyway. We know enough people with firsthand experience losing arms._

_That was unintentional, but I’m leaving it in with the vain hope that me calling attention to it now will stop you from seeing it as a challenge._

Mako grinned. He was already thinking of ways to follow up on the pun – don’t cut him off, you could at least lend him a hand, he was just ampedutate about it. Maybe not that last one. Still, hopefully Cass would be so busy laughing at Mako’s amazing jokes that they’d forget to wonder why he’d brought it up in the first place.

He made a mental note of his plans and kept reading.

_It’s weird to think that it’s already been two years since I left, _Cass continued. _I found one of your shirts that I accidentally packed the other day. I don’t know what it was doing in my things, or how I didn’t notice it earlier. Both because I would never own anything this tacky, and because it’s neon pink. You’d think I would have seen it every time I opened my closet._

Mako frowned. He’d known he was missing clothes, but he’d been blaming the other Makos, who were known thieves. He’d been stealing clothes from them in retaliation. He couldn’t exactly steal Cass’ clothes.

His mind helpfully provided him with the image of what would happen if he did. Cass’ clothes always looked so soft and flowy, and he’d be swimming in them, lost in fabric that probably still smelled faintly of gunmetal and saltwater –

Okay, brain, this was going weird places. It was time to calm down a little.

His brain was a traitor, though, and responded by giving him an image of Cass in one of his flannels. It was too small for them, pulled tight across their shoulders, and they had to roll up the sleeves. They hadn’t even tried to button it, so their abs were on full display.

The lights in the closet clicked off. There was a shout through the wall, accompanied by the sounds of a Rigger whirring to life. His phone, which had gone dim while he was lost in thought, began playing some classical song Cass had liked.

Mako frantically silenced it, then stared into the darkness until it was clear he wasn’t about to be found out and yelled at. That settled, he immediately hacked his brain. “Hey Larry?”

Larry blinked into his vision, perched on one of the upper shelves of the closet. “What’s up?”

Mako gestured vaguely at the light. “Was that you?”

“Nah,” Larry said. “It wouldn’t be a very good joke anyway. That was all you.”

“Huh,” Mako said. “Cool.” That was fine, and in no way reminiscent of the things that had happened when Larry first moved into his brain.

God, the last thing he needed right now was yet another immature and easily-bored person to take care of. He’d barely managed when the only immature person he was responsible for was himself.

He spent the next hour hunting through his brain for some sort of explanation of what the fuck was going on. Larry seemed to be right about the lack of other occupants, at least, or none who were so obvious as to appear as smug Candidate bastards on mental beaches. He hated that his life was at a point where that was reassuring, but it was.

He ended up going through his mental version of September’s database, looking for research on accidental Fogging. It was annoying, in no small part because they refused to talk about their homegrown Strati in anything but the vaguest of terms. He’d gotten past that traumatic revelation forever ago. He just wanted to be able to run a search for the word clone, dammit.

Finally, he found something that might have been related, assuming that “siblings” was a code. He didn’t remember many of his classmates having siblings. And hey, even if it was literal, clones were just time-delayed twins, right?

The point was that having multiple Strati with similar “neurological signatures” could cause an “emotional resonance” that tied their powers more strongly to their feelings. Or something like that.

His first thought was that he was doing terribly for the other Makos if he hadn’t noticed this in any of them until now. His second thought was horror at his first thought. What was he, a dad? They could take care of themselves, accidental Fogging or no.

It wasn’t until he got past that mess of emotions that the real implications hit him. For one thing, he still wasn’t in total control of his powers. He was always at risk of Fogging things without meaning to. Good to know that his brain was prepared to turn on him on literally any front with no warning and no mercy.

Even more troubling was what had brought him to this realization. Yes, Cass was his friend, and yes, they were unfairly attractive. These were both objective facts. There was no reason for either of them to produce an emotional reaction strong enough to hack into three systems at once.

It was probably just a fluke. He’d spent the last three years working with a bunch of younger versions of himself, the least subtle throuple in the universe, and Lazer Ted. It was no wonder he was feeling repressed.

And that was more than enough self-reflection for one day. Good talk, brain, we’ll continue this conversation next time you betray me like this and not a moment before.

He’d probably been in hiding long enough for something to explode, anyway. He crawled out of his closet and went off in search of the latest source of trouble. There was bound to be one, and if not, he’d be happy to start some himself. Anything to distract him from the mental images his brain kept circling back to every time he lost focus.


	2. A Suprise Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, Mako has some time off, which means it's time for an interstellar road trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'm linking the comic that inspired this AU again](https://twitter.com/drowzydruzy/status/1147055020619309056), because this chapter draws most heavily from it. That's right: Cass is actually present in this one. Try to contain your excitement.

In retrospect, breaking into the former imperial palace was probably a bad call. Mako would own up to that one. But like, Ziishe and Apostolos were practically right next to each other, especially if you had access to Rapid Evening tech. And he hadn’t heard from Cass in months, and for once he wasn’t out being a super-cool underground vigilante slash spy, so he had some time to kill.

He hadn’t intended to spend it locked in an Apostolosian prison, but it was fine. He had connections. He also had access to their security systems, but he wasn’t going to risk starting a war with the only people he was on maybe-good terms with unless things got desperate.

Besides, he kind of wanted to see the look on Cass’ face when they realized he was here.

What his brilliant plan didn’t account for was how boring prison was. It wasn’t that the cell was unpleasant or anything. He was still in the imperial compound, so the walls were made from a beautiful white marble. He had a chair, and while it wasn’t the comfiest chair in the sector, it was better than nothing. Presumably. He’d gotten up to pace like five minutes in.

He probably should have done some more research on Apostolosian law before deciding to break it. What if they took him to court and made him defend himself? He’d make a terrible lawyer. He didn’t even know anything about how trials worked here.

He was trying to figure out how you’d defend someone for a crime they’d obviously committed when he caught a glimpse of Cass walking past a security camera, flanked by guards. He pulled himself out of the Mesh just in time to see them stop in front of his cell. He flashed a winning smile. “Thank God. I’ve been in here forever, and I hate to say it, but I don’t think I’m cut out for prison.”

Cass’ face was stern in the way it was when they wanted to smile but didn’t think it was appropriate. “This is a holding cell, not a prison, and you’ve been here for half an hour.”

“You see? Forever.” Mako was playing up his boredom now, but he wanted to break through Cass’ stoic façade. It had been years since he’d seen them in anything but news bulletins and official announcements. Without a full team dedicated to making them seem powerful and important, they looked so tired.

Mako hated it. He wanted to kidnap them and let them sleep for a week, but at that moment, he’d settle for making them laugh.

Not that he was having much better luck with that. Cass only sighed at him. “Look,” they said. “I can see what you’re trying to do here. But how can I be sure you’re my Mako?”

“Wow. You really don’t recognize me? After all we’ve been through together? I’m hurt.” He let his mouth run on autopilot as he tried to come up with a way to prove his identity. He wasn’t having much luck. He couldn’t focus on anything but the phrase “my Mako.”

It was dumb, because he got what Cass meant. But when they put it like that, it sounded like there was more to it, like they’d had a relationship more than two people who lived on the same cramped spaceship and also occasionally broke into places together. It sounded like they’d been more important to each other.

He deliberately didn’t put a name to his imaginings, but unfortunately he was clever enough to make the connection anyway. Before he could stop himself, he was thinking about what it would be like to have that kind of relationship, for them to be constants in each other’s lives. For Cass to call him their Mako and mean it.

An alarm went off, lights flashing and incongruously calm Apostolosian blaring over the loudspeakers. The guards glanced at each other, then took off running, leaving Cass alone. Cass rubbed their temples. “Okay, great, you’re a Stratus. Aren’t all of you Strati?”

Mako considered making a joke about that, but he couldn’t think of one that wouldn’t come out bitter, and Cass didn’t need that on top of their own stuff. He settled for saying, “Yeah, but I’m the best.”

The good news was that the alarm had jolted new thoughts into his brain. He knew he’d be ambushed by “my Mako” next time he fell asleep, but that was a problem for later. Right then, it was easy to fall into the familiar rhythm of teasing Cass. “Anyway, I thought you might not want your fancy guards there to hear about all the ABBA you used to sing in the shower. But if you want me to expose you like that…”

Wow, that was the worst possible way he could have phrased that. He was going to have so much to overthink later.

It had the desired effect, at least. Cass reddened, their assumed dignity giving way to flustered consternation. “I… that’s…” They floundered for words, presumably looking for a way to defend themself without leaving an opening for further mockery. It couldn’t have been easy. Mako had so much material.

They finally gave up and shook their head. They couldn’t quite hide a smile. “Okay, I’m going to assume that’s you, because I don’t want to believe you’re gossiping about my shower habits.”

“I don’t know, it might be good for your image,” Mako said. “I’m sure the people would love to hear that their leader can’t carry a tune to save their life, and that they listen to ancient classical music despite being friends with the biggest pop star around.”

“Come on, ABBA is timeless.” Cass wasn’t even pretending not to be enjoying themself anymore. “Besides, you’re one to talk about people’s taste in music. I remember you talking about how much you love elevator music.”

“You’re just afraid to accept ‘The Girl from Ionias’ into your heart.”

Mako could feel himself relaxing into the conversation, comfortable in a way he hadn’t been in years. He hadn’t noticed how much he missed this. There was always too much work to be done to waste time dwelling on the past.

The alarm shut off. Larry, who was still in the Mesh, helpfully flashed him the feed from the security cameras. Every camera in the building was now facing in Cass’ direction. It was a good thing the walls were so pretty, because Mako was suddenly looking at half of them.

As far as accidental Fogging effects went, he couldn’t say he minded this one. He just wasn’t going to examine the cause in any detail. He was feeling nostalgic, was all.

He looked around the room meaningfully. “Anyway, I’m happy to keep making fun of you, but now that you know that I’m Mako Classic, can we do it somewhere else? I came all this way, I want to see your fancy castle.”

“I don’t know…” Cass said. “I mean, you did try to break in. You’re still a threat to national security.”

Mako gave them an unimpressed look. “Really?”

“Of course not.” Cass typed something into a keypad on the wall, and the cell door swung open. “Seriously, though, don’t do this again. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this visit as it is.”

“Just say I’m here on some top-secret Rapid Evening business or some bullshit.” Mako stepped out of the cell to lean obnoxiously into Cass’ space. “Come on, you’re the Apokine. Who are they to question you?”

Cass’ expression shuttered off again. “You have no idea.”

Well, apparently that had been the wrong thing to say. Good thing Mako was a master of avoiding unpleasant subjects. He whistled. “That bad, huh? I guess we’re going to have to hang out in your room and not let anyone in. We can make a sign: no mean fish people allowed.”

“Yeah, that’s the way to avoid a diplomatic incident.” Cass rolled their eyes good-naturedly. “You have a point, though. If we hurry, we might be able to leave before those guards get back.”

“Now you’re talking,” Mako said.

As it turned out, sneaking around the palace was a lot more fun with Cass by their side.


	3. Complaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako needs to complain to someone he isn't trying to model semi-responsible behavior for, and Aria is a good friend who will definitely listen and be sympathetic.

Having friends who were suddenly the most powerful people in the sector had its perks. For instance, when Aria sent formal invitations asking Mako to visit, the Evening basically had to let him go to avoid a major diplomatic incident. Even if he kept showing up to find that she just wanted to take him to a new food truck she’d discovered.

The disadvantage was that Aria was also a devious bastard who was lulling him into a false sense of security, as he learned two years into the arrangement.

They were hanging out in her apartment, and he was building up to a truly impressive rant. Trying to impress people or be a good role model didn’t leave nearly enough time for pettiness, and he was seizing this opportunity for complaining. “I can’t even enjoy myself without having to make sure I’m not having too much fun and ruining everything. It’s like being a teenager all over again, only with even more chances to embarrass myself.” He crossed his arms dramatically. It took a moment for what he’d said to catch up to him.

Aria caught it too, judging by the sympathetic look she gave him. That wasn’t good. Mako was looking for amused half-hearted reassurance, not genuine comfort. He’d feel like a jerk making Aria deal with his own junk on one of her rare days off.

“I mean,” he said loudly, “I have enough trouble getting the Makos to respect me as it is. The last thing I need is to be in the middle of an important announcement only for everyone’s phone to start blaring ‘Ocean Man’ because I thought I got a message.”

“Yeah, that sounds rough,” Aria said, and there was the amusement he was hoping for. “Out of curiosity, is that still your ringtone for Cass?”

“Yeah? I mean, it’s hilarious, why would I change it?”

“Oh, of course.” Aria smiled knowingly. “And weren’t you telling me how you’d gone to visit them and accidentally set off the security system ‘for no reason’?” She didn’t put physical air quotes around the words, but Mako could sense them anyway.

Curse Aria and her love of drama. Mako should have known that her smile meant doom for those who saw it. “Yes,” he said slowly, aware that denying it at this point would only make her more certain of her assumptions.

“So are all of these incidents Cass related?” Aria was trying very hard not to look smug, which was honestly worse than if she’d been upfront about it.

“No.” Mako wracked his brain for a counterexample. He couldn’t think of one he’d be willing to share, both for not-dumping-on-Aria reasons and for his own dignity. Some things were even more embarrassing than letting her imagination run wild, and the shitshow that was September’s legacy was his own problem, thank you.

If Aria noticed his internal struggle, she seemed content to let it feed into her own crazy narrative. “Uh-huh.”

Mako sighed. “Look, I know what you’re implying, but there’s no way. I just don’t get to see them much, so I’ve had less time to adjust. That’s it. End of story.”

Aria rolled her eyes, suddenly looking put upon, which wasn’t fair. Mako was the one under attack here. She said, “I lived with both of you for years. Don’t try to pretend that this is a new thing.”

“Uh, what?” First of all, there wasn’t a thing, new or otherwise, but more importantly, what was she even talking about? The only reason they were talking about this was the fact that his brain was constantly finding new and exciting ways to screw him over. There was especially no reason to talk about it before that.

He’d probably zoned out a little there, because when he was next aware of Aria, her expression had softened. “All I’m saying is that you were pretty obvious. You spent so much time trying to impress them.”

“I like to show off! It’s not my fault I kept getting sent with them on jobs. If anything, you should be accusing them of trying to impress me.” Mako narrowly resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at her.

“You are so close to getting it,” Aria said.

Nope, Mako wasn’t even considering that one. “You’re just getting bored with life as a big fancy executive and want to manufacture some gossip.”

“Trust me, I hear so much gossip now. I have people whose entire jobs are keeping track of gossip. I’m just trying to help my friends who I love and want to be happy.” She leaned in, suddenly earnest. “You should ask them out. I think it would be good for you.”

Mako hated to ruin one of Aria’s last remaining hobbies, but since that hobby was meddling in his life, he could only feel so bad about it. “Look,” he said. “Even if I did have a thing for Cass, which I obviously don’t, what would come next? I can’t move to Apostolos, and they definitely can’t leave. They barely even have time to message me, and trying to match our schedules up to talk to each other would be a nightmare. They’d just be miserable without me. Trust me, I know what I do to my partners.” The joke fell flat, as Mako had known it would when he made it, but the alternative was acknowledging how bleak the scenario he’d set out was.

He shrugged. “The point is, even if you convince yourself that not only am I into Cass but they’re also into me, we can’t exactly do anything about it. Things aren’t as simple as they used to be. Which is saying something, given what our lives used to be like. Am I right?” He pulled out the finger guns, the last resort of uncomfortable humor, and gave a forced smile.

Aria looked very sad. She took a deep breath and put on her interview smile, the one that never quite reached her eyes. “You sound like you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about asking Cass out.”

“More like I’m good at predicting these things. You know what would happen if I asked you out? You’d laugh at first, but in this weird alternate universe where I’m straight and your taste doesn’t suck, I manage to convince you with my passion and charm. You’re so overcome with longing for me that we start making out on the spot. Then your girlfriend walks in and punches me so hard I explode. She doesn’t have to use her bombs or anything. I die in your arms, it’s totally tragic, and the Vanguard falls apart now that its leader is too overwhelmed by grief to go on.” He finished the story by throwing himself dramatically back into his chair.

Aria’s face had gone through an impressive range of emotions as he’d talked, but it finally settled at the midpoint of disgust and amusement, so Mako considered it a rousing success. She’d wanted a made-up romance to fantasize about, and he’d given her one. She had only herself to blame.

“Okay, first of all, fuck you for those mental images.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Two, are you really insulting my taste? Because one of us here chose to spend a month on a ship with Lazer Ted, and the other was stuck with him as a result.”

“Hey, Ted’s cool.” It wasn’t his most spirited defense, but it wasn’t like Ted was around to care.

“No. No he’s not.” Aria shook her head. “Look, if you really don’t want to talk about Cass, I’ll shut up about them. It’s just been rough for all of us, these last few years, and I want to know that my friends are happy.”

Oh no, they were back to sincerity mode. Mako had thought they were past that.

It was clear what he had to do, though. “I’m totally happy,” he said. “Don’t even worry about me.”

And yeah, he was maybe lying through his teeth. The thought of going back to corralling the Makos and having all that work to do filled him with dread. At the same time, he couldn’t quite get his mind off of it. He knew there were things he needed to be doing.

But hanging out with Aria was a welcome escape, and it was clear that she needed it too. And when she smiled at him in response, he almost thought he’d meant it.

It was such a nice moment, it wasn’t until he’d gone to crash in her guest room that he noticed that his phone background was a photo of the Chime, something he definitely hadn’t set it to. Not consciously, anyway.

Aria texted him a screenshot of her phone a minute later, which had the same dumb photo as its lockscreen. She didn’t say anything, just sent a winking emoji. It was official: having friends was bad, actually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that every TV in the building suddenly flipped to an Apostolosian news channel at some point in this conversation, but since Aria's TV wasn't on there was no natural way to bring it up. Rest assured, though, Mako doesn't have anywhere near the fine control to only affect two phones.


	4. A Cruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For complicated but totally legitimate reasons, the Chime have taken a job on a cruise ship. Mako's going to have a good time no matter how much Cass frowns at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to any Americans who are reading this the hour I post it, and to anyone else who happens to be reading this at the right time of year for them. I personally am thankful for these idiots and how much fun they are to write together. This chapter is ridiculously long as a result, but I put too much thought into the fake names to cut them, so I hope you enjoy gratuitous Chime teasing.

“Are you sure?” Cass asked. “This seems a little convoluted. Maybe –”

That’s when Mako elbowed them in the side. They made an indignant noise, but before they could keep talking, AuDy cut in. “We accept.”

Cass shot them a look, but didn’t disagree.

Orth looked concerned. That was basically his default expression, though, so Mako chose not to read into it. He and AuDy were masters of diplomacy. “All right,” Orth said. “I’ll send you your covers shortly. Good luck.”

Cass maintained military posture right up until Orth hung up, when they rounded on Mako. “Really?”

“Listen. When the government not only buys you tickets for a cruise but offers to pay you to go on it, you don’t complain about it.” He turned to Aria for support.

“Ordinarily, I’d agree, but given what this cruise is about…” She shook her head. “They’re selling Weight to the highest bidder. It’s not even access to Weight, either, it’s just the ability to stare at everything that’s being kept from us slightly closer up. Can’t you see how messed up that is?”

Mako sucked air in through his teeth. Right, of course that would be what Aria focused on. “I mean, yeah, but it’s not like we can liberate an entire planet overnight,” he tried.

“That doesn’t mean we have to endorse this sort of injustice.”

“And it’s a bad plan, too,” Cass chimed in. “What, we follow some guy around the whole time hoping to intercept a drop-off we think he might have arranged with an unknown second party?”

“We aren’t currently in a position to refuse a job simply because it seems ill-thought out,” AuDy said. “Not to mention that doing so would be highly hypocritical of us.”

“You see?” Mako wasn’t used to AuDy being the one to back him up, but he wasn’t complaining. Besides, he’d pay money to see AuDy playing shuffleboard, or whatever people did on cruises. “And I already told Orth we’d do it, so we can’t back out now without ruining our reputation.”

“Yeah, cause that’s doing so great to begin with,” Cass muttered, but their heart wasn’t in it. “Fine. Let’s go on a cruise.”

Mako pumped his fist.

Aria groaned. “Fine, but I’m going to complain the whole time.”

“As long as you wait until our job is done, I don’t care if you lead the other passengers in an armed revolt,” Cass said.

“I can work with that,” Aria said, looking way too thoughtful.

There was no time to try to talk her out of whatever she was planning, though, because Mako had a cruise to pack for. He had some tacky fluorescent shirts that would be perfect for this.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that Orth’s email finally came through, bringing the next round of complications. Namely, the fact that he’d only booked two rooms for the four of them. He’d apologized in the email, cited his lack of budget and desire to have something to pay them with, but it still left them all eying each other warily.

Mako was the one to break the silence. “Dibs on rooming with Cass!” Rooming with AuDy was always unnerving, since they refused to shut down overnight, and he wanted to be as far from Aria’s wild plan as possible.

Cass looked at AuDy, then at Aria. “Sure,” they said. “That’s fine. Does that work for you two? Because it’s fine with me.”

Aria shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

“I have no objections,” AuDy agreed.

“Great!” Mako scrolled through the email again and frowned. “Wow, these fake names all suck. I’m gonna give us better ones. Anyone have any thoughts about their cruisesonas?”

“Don’t,” Cass said, but Aria was already lighting up.

“You should make Cass be Verified Salt.”

“Yeah, that won’t stand out at all.” Cass huffed. “We should be getting ready, not coming up with childish fake names for ourselves.”

“Cass is right,” AuDy said. Cass started to thank them, but AuDy continued, “You need something that sounds Apostolosian for them. Try Alinos Epalithevmeno.”

Cass threw their hands in the air. “That doesn’t mean anything! It’s especially not a name.”

“Do you really think anyone will notice?” Aria asked. She turned to Mako. “Do it.”

Mako was already entangled in the Mesh, but he pulled himself out long enough to give her a thumbs up. “Of course.”

Cass made a noise of disgust, but as they looked away, Mako caught the beginnings of their smile. “You’re all terrible people.”

“You’re just jealous because Alinos gets to go on cruises,” Aria said. “I, on the other hand, choose to embrace Finale Fault.”

“That’s your name now, no takebacks.” Mako entered it into the system. “And obviously I’ll be Drillbot, because he’s a successful businessman who deserves to take some time for himself. So that just leaves AuDy.”

“I will be Ashley,” AuDy said.

There was silence as everyone digested that. “Huh,” Mako said. “All right.”

“Aren’t you like three?” Cass asked. “I’m surprised you’ve even heard that kind of old-fashioned name.”

AuDy, predictably, didn’t respond, and that was more or less the end of that.

Mako was as good as his word, though, and he was building up to a full Drillbot rant as they searched for their room. “I told Spacetruck you have to make time for yourself if you want to succeed in this world, and I always say there’s no better way to make time for yourself than getting away from everyone else.”

Cass sighed, though their look of put-upon suffering was marred by the plastic flowers around their neck. “You do realize we’re trying to track down a criminal, right? It might be easier to do that if you weren’t drawing the attention of everyone on the ship.”

“Nonsense!” Mako said, still in full Drillbot mode. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You need to relax more, Alinos, or you’ll never make it far in life.”

“Is it too late to room with AuDy instead?”

“I’m sure I don’t know who you’re talking about.” He pulled up in front of a door. “And anyway, we’re already here. Are you ready to step into relaxation?” He swung the door open with a flourish, and that’s when they saw that there was only one bed.

In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. That was how hotel rooms generally worked. Sleeping hadn’t been at the top of his cruise to-do list, though, so he hadn’t thought about it.

“Hmm.” Cass ushered him into the room and closed the door. “Okay. This is fine. We can sleep in shifts, and that will let us cover more ground anyway.”

“We already worked out the schedule with Aria and AuDy, though, and racing over to them immediately will make it obvious that we know each other.” Mako sat on the bed and bounced experimentally. It was springier than he’d like, but they all had to make sacrifices for the job. “Besides, we probably shouldn’t be working alone if we can avoid it. We don’t know how much firepower this guy has.”

“Yeah…” Cass stared at the bed. “I guess I can sleep on the floor, then.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll take the floor. I’m used to sleeping in weird places anyway.”

“You are literally lying on the bed right now,” Cass said, which was patently untrue. Mako’s legs were still hanging off the end. Yes, his torso was flat, but that was like saying you were lying down every time you had to limbo under something. The postures were completely different.

“But when I get up, I’m going to go do all sorts of fun cruise things. You on the other hand are going to follow me around and tell me to stop and not do anything fun for yourself. You should at least enjoy the one thing you won’t say is ‘too undignified’ or whatever.” Mako sat back up so he could see Cass’ expression.

As he’d hoped, they were making their trademark indignant face, the one where they wouldn’t say they didn’t need to take this from someone beneath them but still kind of Implied it. “Are you making fun of me for not wanting you to sleep on the floor?”

“I’m making fun of you for a lot of things, and also saying you should let me sleep on the floor.”

They stared at each other for a minute, neither willing to back down.

Finally Mako threw his hands in the air. “This is a waste of time. We can figure it out later. Right now, we should go ‘scout out the ship.’”

“I can tell you’re being ironic, but you’re right, we do need to go look for possible drop points.” They took Mako’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Please don’t get distracted by the dumb tourist stuff.”

“You know I can’t promise that.” Mako dropped back into his Drillbot voice. “You know I take my vacations very seriously.”

“Ugh,” Cass said mildly. “Is it too late to change your cover to someone who can’t talk?”

“I would actually die,” Mako said. “Besides, you’d miss the sound of my voice.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” Cass realized they were still holding Mako’s hand and hastily dropped it, turning to face the door. “Anyway, we should go.”

“Right.” Mako took a deep breath to settle into the Drillbot persona, someone who didn’t care about the way his hand was still warm where Cass had held it. “Now, let us check out the facilities on this fine vessel.”

The ship turned out to match his expectations pretty closely, with giant dining rooms and a pool surrounded by viewports and even a shuffleboard deck. He was sure to comment on all these things to Cass, who rolled their eyes and did a terrible job of sounding long-suffering in response.

They were checking out the salon when a voice came on over the intercoms. “Attention all passengers. We will be lifting off shortly. We advise that anyone who wishes to watch the launch process make their way to the viewing area at this time. Thank you for choosing Weight of the World.”

“Oh hey!” Mako grabbed Cass’ arm. “Come on, I have an idea!”

“Okay?” Cass let Mako lead them through the crowds of eager tourists and into a formerly-locked maintenance closet.

They had to push their way past some mops and old signs, but as Mako had hoped, there was a window at the back. He gestured to it with a flourish. “Front row seats. Pretty nice, huh?”

“It’s better than I expected when you started dragging me into a janitors’ closet,” Cass agreed. “How did you know this was here?”

“Well, I memorized the layout of the windows as we were boarding, then cross-referenced that with each room as we went through them.” He let that sink in before admitting, “And I downloaded the ship’s blueprints.”

“Nice work.”

A hum passed through the floor, quickly dampened by the onboard stabilizers. Mako’s eyes locked to the window. “It’s starting!”

He’d only been offworld once before, when he left September, and the circumstances hadn’t exactly encouraged sightseeing. This time, there was nothing to stop him from watching as they lifted higher and higher until the sky seemed to fall away entirely, revealing an endless field of stars. “Wow,” he breathed.

“Yeah.” Cass was smiling softly when Mako glances at them, an expression he didn’t think he’d seen before. “You always think that eventually you’ll see it enough times and it will stop meaning so much, but some things really are that breathtaking.”

“Look at you, all fancy and going into space so many times.” It wasn’t Mako’s best work, but he was still watching Counterweight shrink below them, so forgive him for having other things on his mind.

Cass hummed noncommittally, but otherwise didn’t respond.

They stared out the window in silence for a while longer before Mako tore himself away. “Okay, I’m good. Ready to go back to doing our job?”

Guilt flashed across Cass’ face, like they’d been caught slacking off, but they quickly returned to mission neutrality. “I think they’re going to start serving dinner soon. We should see if we can check in with Aria and AuDy there without being too obvious about it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Mako pushed away from the wall and headed out. “Do you think they’ll have some kind of fancy banquet set up?”

“I hope not,” Cass said, following him out. “Those things always last forever, and I want to do another quick sweep of the ship before bed.”

“Oh, come on, we’ve got weeks to get this done. We can afford to spend a few hours having fun.”

Cass grumbled at that, and grumbled more when they saw that it really was a banquet, but they didn’t try to rush Mako through the meal, so he took it as a win.

They caught Aria’s eye across the room halfway through the main course. She nodded slightly and grinned before turning back to her conversation with a bald old man. Mako couldn’t see what AuDy was doing, but judging by the lack of hubbub, he’d assume things were still on track.

It felt like no time passed between leaving dinner and getting ready for bed. Curse Cass’ insistence on taking the later shift. Mako couldn’t fall asleep at 8:00.

He couldn’t put it off, though, which was how he found himself standing next to Cass, each in their pajamas and staring at the one bed.

Cass’ brow was furrowed like they were about to volunteer to take the floor again, so Mako spoke up first. “Why don’t we share the bed? I mean, you’ve had to cut my clothes off my body, I think we can manage this.”

“What?” Cass’ scales shone with the first hints of a blush. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just saying, we’ve been in way more compromising situations than this.” Mako could admit that it sounded weird when he put it like that, but it wasn’t like he was actually planning to share the bed with them. As soon as they fell asleep, he would get up and leave them sleeping comfortably.

“I guess?” Cass sighed. “Fine, this isn’t worth arguing about.”

“Exactly.” He crawled under the covers, balancing right at the edge of the bed. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Cass said, still sounding a little unsure.

Mako felt the bed dip under their weight. He’d made sure they wouldn’t be touching, but he could feel the warmth of them at his back. He could smell their shampoo, a chemical saltiness they complained about but kept buying anyway. They felt almost unbearably close.

He focused on their breathing, waiting for it to even out so he could get up. Instead, he found his own breathing starting to match theirs. He drifted off to sleep before he realized it.

* * *

A harsh beeping dragged Mako back to consciousness despite his best efforts. He thrashed around a bed that felt way too large until he woke up enough to think of Fogging the alarm back off.

It was still dark out, far too early for even his new real-person hours and earlier than he’d set it to go off. He wanted to be impressed. Here was proof that he could literally Fog things in his sleep.

He couldn’t bring himself to be pleased. He was too busy trying to restructure the world into something that made sense.

The thing was, he was actually pretty good at pattern recognition. He’d noticed the running theme in these incidents long before Aria pointed it out. It was much easier to ignore something if you refused to acknowledge it, though, so he refused to think words like “feelings” or “crush” with regards to Cass.

The dream had dragged it to the center of his attention, where he couldn’t ignore it anymore no matter how much he wanted to. The real problem, though, was the way it had done it. Mako remembered the job that had put them on the cruise ship, and while his subconscious had changed a lot of the details, enough were the same to cause some serious concern.

Because there were words for crushes that lasted five years, too, words Mako hadn’t thought to avoid because he’d never considered that they might be relevant.

As it turned out, they were pretty fucking relevant, and Mako was in love with Cass.

The alarm went off again, louder and more insistent. Mako shut it off with his hands. His mind was too scattered to try Fogging anything.

So he was… this thing with Cass was real. Now what? He hadn’t been lying when he told Aria that trying to date them would be a disaster. Neither of them had the time.

Of course, realistically what would happen was that Cass would reject him, feel guilty about it, and stop writing to him altogether. Mako couldn’t blame them for it. They had all their big official duties to deal with, and it was clear that he was an afterthought at best. It was fine.

But where did that leave him? Pining over the unattainable Apokine like the protagonist of a bad romance novel? Mako Trig didn’t do pining. He wasn’t built for it. He got things over with and moved on.

Then again, he’d apparently been into Cass for five years. Maybe he wasn’t as good at that as he thought.

The worst part was that seen from the outside, it was obvious how stupid he was being. When he ignored the context and thought about Cass without any qualifiers, though, it all felt so natural. The way they got opinionated about old Earth TV shows, and insisted on cooking dinner for everyone despite only knowing one recipe, and turned away whenever Mako told a particularly bad joke as if he hadn’t already seen their smile… Of course Mako was in love with them. Anything else was unimaginable.

It felt like he lay there for hours, turning his mind inside out without finding any solution. Eventually he dragged himself out of bed and to the training room. If he couldn’t figure this out, he could at least bury himself in work until it stopped seeming like such a big deal.


	5. Dinner and Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass has invited the entire Chime to dinner, and also asked to talk to Mako one-on-one. Mako is definitely ready to deal with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone! I come with my own holiday special, which I promise will not be as devastating as the canon ones. Unless you're me, writing it and realizing how much Lazer Ted has to be present for the time period you chose to write in. Why did I do this to myself.

Mako should have been thrilled. The Chime was getting back together, he was going to get a medal, everything was great. And like, don’t get him wrong, he was definitely happy to know that AuDy wasn’t dead. He wasn’t that self-centered.

The thing was, Cass had included a note at the bottom of his invitation asking if they could talk to him after dinner. Alone. Just Mako, Cass, and the fact of Mako’s feelings waiting to ambush him at any moment. The thought was maybe more terrifying than leaving the rest of the Makos to their own devices for the evening.

But what was he going to do, say no? That would have looked way too suspicious. He was going to have to get through a conversation without Cass without thinking about how much he wanted to run away with them like a character from those ridiculous dramas Aria insisted she only watched because she knew the actresses.

He also asked Larry to keep an eye out, just in case Mako’s terrible brain decided to take its emotions out on Cass’ security system again. Hopefully Larry could get it shut down again before Cass started asking any difficult questions.

The meal was a lot in and of itself. He and Ted weren’t even the ones making a scene, for once. AuDy had definitely earned some drama, though, and five years later it was still hard not to empathize with Sokrates with so many of their memories in his head. They were right anyway. The real problem, as always, was rich old people who thought they deserved anything they wanted.

But despite the reminders of everything that had changed, the looming threat of Rigor that kept his leg bouncing under the table the entire meal, sitting here with everyone felt like coming home. He could say dumb things and not worry about anyone taking him seriously, and if Aria’s girlfriend was very mean to him about his shirt, that still felt more normal than having people defer to him all the time. The worst part was the boring pre-medal speech, and even then he just pulled up the blueprints to the latest facility he was investigating while he waited.

The real trouble began when Cass brought the meal to an end. They had to stick around to say goodbye to all the politicians, even though none of them deserved it, and that left Mako hanging around the table awkwardly. Ted had abandoned him to try to cozy up to anyone who looked rich. He did flash Mako a thumbs up, but that could have meant anything from “Good luck” to “Check out my latest business.”

It was fine, though. Mako could handle this. He had a medal to prove how great he was at handling things.

Finally Cass managed to extract themself from the swarm of people and join Mako. If possible, they looked even more exhausted than they had after AuDy had called them an emperor. Mako’s nerves vanished immediately. This was still just Cass, and the fact that he really wanted to kiss them changed less than he might have thought. “Sucks that you don’t get a medal,” he said.

Cass’ lips twitched. “I can’t give myself a medal, that would be tacky.”

“Yeah, but you did way more on September than Orth did. No offense to Orth, but you ought to get some sort of recognition, you know?”

“I did get a giant mech and leadership of an empire out of it.” Their tone was still light, but their smile was bitter.

“Well, you should come to my place and I’ll give you the medal you deserve,” Mako said, and then wanted to slam his head against a wall. He let his guard down and immediately managed to hit on Cass without even meaning to. It would have been better if he’d been nervous after all.

This was why he didn’t want to acknowledge his feelings. He wanted to cheer them up, and instead he was overthinking everything five seconds too late to make a difference.

Cass looked worried, and yeah, from their perspective he had frozen up for no reason, hadn’t he? Great going, way to freak them out when they were already stressed.

“…This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Cass said.

Oh God, had they picked up on his crush? He had been pretty obvious about it just now. They had to know.

This was not a conversation he wanted to have basically ever, but right now was a bad time for both of them. Especially when there was a good chance of him setting off the sprinkler system in the process. Time to do what he did best and misdirect.

He dredged up a grin. “What, getting you a medal? Because I don’t have one on me, but if you give me some time I can definitely make you one. I’ll even put a frowny face on it so everyone knows you’re a very serious person who doesn’t have fun and never laughed until they cried over a stupid video of someone’s voice put onto a fake goose.”

“Shut up, it was late and I wasn’t thinking straight.” Cass visibly caught themself before they could continue in that vein. “Anyway, you’re deflecting. The point is that I’m worried about you.”

“Really? Why’s that? I’m totally fine. I mean, there’s a big evil robot coming to kill us all, and that’s not great, but it’s also not really a me problem. For that matter, are you okay? Is this whole thing an elaborate cry for help? Because I’m here for you, buddy,” he finished with mock solemnity.

His impromptu attempt to overrun Cass with words only made them look more tired. He was really hitting all the uncomfortable conversation markers today.

Completely ignoring Mako’s babbling, Cass said, “I was talking to Aria, and she’s noticed it too.”

“You were talking to Aria about me?” When was this? They barely talked to him these days, but they had the time to gossip with Aria about him?

“Whoa, hold on, we don’t want to set off the alarm again,” Larry murmured.

As much as Mako hated being told to calm down, Larry did have a point. Mako shook his head. “Right, sorry. Go ahead with your intervention or whatever.”

Cass groaned. “I’m doing a terrible job with this, aren’t I?”

“I’m still not entirely sure what you’re trying to do, so…” Mako gave a sort of half shrug.

Cass rested their hand on their fist. “Great. This is going great.” They took a deep breath, and Mako braced for them to go into lecture mode, but when they looked up again their expression was apologetic. “I know I haven’t been fair to you.”

Well. That wasn’t where Mako had thought this was going at all. He was sure his confusion was written all over his face, but Cass kept talking without giving him a chance to interject. “Hearing from you has been one of the only good things in my life these last few years. It was just so hard to justify good things when there was so much else to be done. So I kept putting it off, because it was easier to deal with things here if I didn’t have to remember what they were like before, and that meant ignoring you for way too long. And I’m sorry.”

Oh no. Mako hadn’t just made Cass feel awkward, he’d made them feel guilty. This was a worst-case scenario he hadn’t even considered. (Sure, it sounded a little like the lead-in to a best-case scenario that would murder him instantly, but he refused to read into it. Cass got intense sometimes. This was the first time they’d directed it at him, but that didn’t mean anything. His heart could stop racing any time now.)

Right. Time to run damage control. That was what he was good at. “It’s totally fine,” he said, emphasizing the word “totally” until it was almost incomprehensible. “You’re busy, and I get that. I don’t want to be another obligation for you, you know? The last thing you need is someone else acting like you owe them your time.”

“That’s the exact opposite of what I was saying.” Cass put their hands on Mako’s shoulders, and wow, their face was really close to his. That was fun. He would definitely be able to pay attention to what Cass was saying and not how easy it would be to kiss them right now.

He had to be blushing. His face was definitely hot enough for it. If he was, though, Cass didn’t react, their expression focused the way it was right before they laid out a plan. “Listen. You are important to me. I know it’s probably my fault that you don’t believe that, but it’s true. And because I care about you, I want to be there for you when you need me.”

They couldn’t meet Mako’s eyes, clearly uncomfortable saying all this, but their tone was earnest. It was too much for Mako, too easy to take more from it than Cass intended to give. “He ducked out from under their arms. “I know,” he said, a little more breathless than he’d like. “And thank you. You’re…” He swallowed. “You’re important to me too. That’s why I don’t want to burden you with any of my shit.”

Cass laughed, disbelieving and a little hysterical. “I know you’re not great at listening, but please pay attention for once.” As if Mako wasn’t always paying attention to them. As if that wasn’t the problem. “I want you to be happy. I want to help, if I possibly can. Because you’re not a burden, Mako. You’re my friend.”

All the lights in the banquet hall shut off. Mako couldn’t bring himself to be upset about it. It meant Cass couldn’t see the way his face had crumpled.

“Do you want me to deal with that, or…?” Larry asked.

Mako pushed him aside, shoving at him with the full force of his anger and upset. Larry retreated to the back of their shared headspace without another word.

Instantly Mako felt guilty. It was his own fault for deluding himself into thinking Cass could possibly love him. Larry shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.

He realized Cass was talking again. He focused on the words with a herculean show of effort.

“If you don’t want to have this conversation, you can just say so. You don’t need to do all this. It’s not funny.” They were trying to sound casual, Mako thought, but their concern kept bleeding through. It was impressive how the universe kept finding ways to make him feel worse.

“You know me, always pushing bits to their limit.” Mako’s voice was flat, which he knew would set off all of Cass’ alarm bells, but he also knew that the alternative was breaking down in front of them, which was unthinkable. “Anyway, I really need to get going. Thanks again for hosting.”

“Wait, Mako!” Cass said. They might have said more after that. Mako didn’t catch it, too busy willing himself not to cry.

It was stupid. Cass didn’t owe him anything, and to act like they did was stupid and selfish and awful. He had no right to feel so devastated right now. It was entirely pointless and unproductive.

He made it back to the ship without running into anyone else, thankfully. Lazer Ted was already waiting for him. “Hey, how’d it go? You seemed pretty tight with that fish prince guy. You get anywhere with them? Because you know I charmed the hell out of them at dinner, but it never hurts to have another in, you dig?”

“Not now, Ted,” and oh, Mako didn’t like the way his voice broke on the words.

Ted didn’t either, apparently, judging by the way he leaned back, hands in the air. “Whoa, okay, that’s cool. I’m gonna…” He gestured in a way that did nothing to finish his sentence. “So, uh. Hope you’re keeping it wavy.” He left, which was good, because Mako didn’t want to lose his temper at anyone else today.

He turned on the ship’s autopilot, aimed it for Kesh, then pulled up his inbox. He’d be fine. He would get over this in no time. He just needed to get his mind off of things, and he might as well get some work done in the process.

The hum of the engines filled his ears, growing louder and louder until it drowned out the turmoil of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The goose video Mako references is of course [this one](https://twitter.com/MelloMakes/status/1176679335916376065), which I first saw at two in the morning and which did in fact make me laugh until I cried.


	6. Desperate Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako figures out how to make his brain work with him, for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with this fic! I don't know why my brain went from "this is a funny comic on Twitter with a cute premise" to "write Mako angst with it," but I've had a great time doing it, so I hope you've enjoyed reading it too.

The worst part of all of this was that he’d had to find out on the news.

That’s what Mako told himself, anyway. It wasn’t true. The worst part of it was everything, but especially the fact that there was no way to know if he was too late until he got there and saw Cass’ death for himself.

Dwelling on that for too long would send him spiraling, though, and he definitely wouldn’t be able to save Cass if he was having a panic attack. Instead, he clung to the indignation that they hadn’t thought to call him even to say goodbye, then channeled that indignation to push his ship to fly still faster. Safety limiters only mattered if you cared about having a ship at the end of your journey.

He almost didn’t bother with the autopilot, September’s location burned into his brain by a thousand different traumas. It turned out to be a good thing he had. Rigor’s hum was loud enough to reverberate through the vacuum of space, hollowing him out and making it difficult to focus. Wasn’t there something more productive he could be doing? Why would he waste his time defying something so powerful and important?

It might have been enough to send him careening into the planet. Instead, the autopilot brought him into a gentle orbit, giving him a chance to fight through the mental fog. It was a good sign, probably. There’d be no reason for Rigor to hang around if someone weren’t keeping it here.

He followed the hum to its source, where he found the first good news of the day: Cass had managed to outmaneuver Rigor. The Apokine stood astride the Divine, spear embedded in its chest. Rigor had reformed around the spear, but didn’t seem to have the power to either absorb or expel it.

Both machines were utterly still. They could have been memorials to some long-forgotten war if not for that sickening drone that seemed to congeal the air around them.

Mako opened a comm link to the Apokine. Cass didn’t answer immediately, giving Mako time to imagine every terrible thing that could have happened to them without visibly damaging their mech. When they did answer, they were slumped over their console. They raised their head just enough to see the screen. “Mako?” It was a request for confirmation, like they couldn’t trust their eyes. Or worse, like they hadn’t recognized him.

Mako wanted to make a glib comment to reassure them, but nothing about this was funny. “Hey,” he said lamely. “Can I come in?”

Cass stared down at their console. “I can’t.”

Mako was prepared to tease them about having a mech for five years and still not knowing how to use it when their actual meaning hit him. He swallowed hard. “Don’t worry, I won’t let it come with me.” He began pulling his ship level with the Apokine. “I’m going to make my own entrance, okay? Just hold on a sec.”

He wanted them to complain about damaging a royal family heirloom. He wanted them to do pretty much anything but what they actually did, which was stare at him blankly. Eventually, they nodded. “Okay.”

Mako hadn’t had time to be picky about his transportation, but the nice thing about being part of the Rapid Evening was that all their ships had anti-mech weapons. Putting a hole in the unmoving Apokine was easy. He just hoped it could repair itself by the time they had to leave.

The inside of the Apokine was filled with corridors, direct and straightforward. If Mako had had time, he might have thought about how fitting that was for Cass. As it was, he was too busy racing to their side.

It took them way too long to register his presence. The pounding of his feet on the Apokine’s tiled floors should have been audible even over Rigor’s relentless hum, but Cass didn’t react, only turning to face him when he was practically on top of them.

He had to stop himself from throwing his arms around them. They looked as lost as they had over the comm, one hand hovering in the space between the two of them as if Cass had forgotten it was there. Mako wasn’t going to give them yet another thing to have to process.

“No,” Cass said, almost to themself. They looked at the display, then back to him. “Mako, you… you shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous. I have to do this, but you can still get away.” Their eyes were filled with such desperation that it made Mako angry. How dare Rigor reduce someone as extraordinary as Cass to this quiet despair? It had already consumed so much, the planet he’d never really grown up on and the people he’d cared about and so many countless worlds and lives before that. It was not getting anything else from him. It wouldn’t take anything from anyone ever again.

“The only thing you have to do is step back and let me work my magic,” he told Cass. The fury simmering under the words rendered his voice all but unrecognizable to him.

Cass’ eyes seemed to focus, and Mako couldn’t stop the hope that sparked in his chest. “There’s no other way,” Cass said. “This is my duty.”

It was the most certain they’d sounded since he had arrived, and he could practically taste Rigor behind their words. His anger returned in full force. “Bullshit. You don’t owe your life to anyone.” Without another word, he dove into the Mesh.

Rigor dominated the virtual landscape just as it did the physical. Slipping inside it was trivial. He was greeted by ICE as alien and off-putting as the thing’s real body. Mako could feel that he’d triggered some, and he reflexively pulled up a routine to disarm it, but it melted as soon as it saw him, as if he was carrying the right password. He stiffened. There was no way this would be that easy. His strategist wasn’t exactly able to help him right now, though, so all he could do was keep his eyes open as he walked into the trap.

He crept toward the control center as warily as he could. No more ICE triggered, and he made it there without any trouble.

Rigor’s structure was entirely unlike Order’s. It made sense that the Disapora had improved on the design in the last hundred millennia, especially since this one turned out to be evil, but it meant he’d have to do this from scratch.

That was fine. He’d done this once before, and the circumstances then had been practically as dire. There was no reason he couldn’t do it again.

He began feeding instructions into Rigor, as much to test his control as anything. He wasn’t surprised when it started fighting back. It didn’t seem to be trying to force him out, though. If anything, it was retreating, unspooling into loose strings that winked out of existence when he tried to read them. His brain felt raw and chafed where they’d been.

He couldn’t afford to get out of Rigor, but he dropped his awareness back into physical reality, leaving a placeholder in Rigor’s dissolving command center. He needed to get away from the scraping pain it left behind.

He couldn’t chase down a splintering Divine. He might be fast enough to follow it, but there was so much to it that he’d never be sure he’d gotten it all, and even a loose fragment of Rigor could have devastating consequences. That was the whole point of his job. What he needed was a way to infect the core before he lost access.

He got the theory of how to do it. The real problem would be imbuing his command with enough power to overcome Rigor’s entire brain.

All at once, he knew what he had to do. It sucked, but so did the rest of this day, so if anything that was a point in its favor. If he wanted to overload Rigor’s brain, all he needed to do was overload his own.

He locked eyes with Cass, who hadn’t moved since he’d first jacked in. “I have a plan, but it’s going to be a little weird, so I need you to trust me.”

For the first time that day, Cass answered without hesitation. “I trust you.”

Mako’s heart sank at this last show of faith before he ruined their relationship forever. That was kind of the point of this exercise, though. He stepped towards them, not even trying to calm his racing heart. “I’m sorry,” he said, and then he kissed them.

It wasn’t like he’d imagined. Their lips were badly chapped, and their only reaction was muffled surprise, with none of the enthusiasm he’d refused to let himself hope for.

None of that mattered, because he was kissing Cass. He was ecstatic to finally realize this dream even as he despaired over how they would inevitably respond. The shame of springing it on them while they were in this state mingled with the thrill of feeling their lips against his. Underneath it all was the dizzying relief of having his feelings in the open and damn the consequences.

He could feel the pressure building in his mind. Without breaking the kiss, he sank back into the Mesh. The command he sent to Rigor was backed by the most intense storm of emotions he’d felt since the September Incident itself.

The force of it was enough to snap the remains of his connection and throw him back into his body. He staggered away from Cass, reeling from what felt like something had ripped from his mind and left a bloody mess in its wake.

It took him a second to notice the silence. It was peaceful, Rigor’s eternal drone finally brought to an end. Even more than that, for the first time in ages, his mind felt clear. The buzzing that had been building unnoticeably was gone. He could just be.

Of course, where he was being was still a torn-up planet falling into its sun, so he couldn’t be for very long unless he acted fast. He reached into the Mesh and immediately pulled away, wincing. Right. The headache that was Rigor’s last fuck you. Apparently he wouldn’t be in any shape to Fog things for a while.

He took a deep breath, as much to remind himself how to have a physical body, and looked back at Cass. They still seemed a bit overwhelmed, but given how many things had happened in the last fifteen minutes, he couldn’t blame them. At least the clarity was returning to their eyes.

Knowing that they were back made it even harder to address them casually. He gave it his best shot. “Hey, so I know I was incredibly cool and saved the universe, so you’re welcome for that. The thing is, I may have pulled my brain in the process, so if you could get us out of here before we burn to death, that would be great.”

Cass’ eyes narrowed. They assessed Mako for a long moment, leaving Mako trying to juggle his delight that they were returning to themself along with his fear of the conclusions they were drawing.

Whatever those conclusions were, they nodded and hit a few buttons on the console. The Apokine began to rise. Mako craned to look out the viewport, but Rigor didn’t move. The wound in its chest didn’t close, even with the obstruction gone. Mako slumped with relief. Giving his exhaustion a chance to pounce was probably a mistake, but conveniently he was too tired to care.

He did care when Cass said his name, their tone suggesting this wasn’t the first time. He smiled weakly. “Hey.”

“Who’s the leader of the Righteous Vanguard?”

Mako blinked in confusion. “It’s still Aria, right?” Assuming heads of state making terrible decisions wasn’t going around right now.

Nope, that was an awful joke to make, now he was worried about Aria too. He wouldn’t put it past today.

Cass nodded to themself. “And are you feeling nauseous or unusually tired?”

“I did just kill the original Divine, I don’t think being tired is unusual.” He frowned. “Why are you asking all this?”

“You said you pulled your brain, I was checking to make sure you don’t have a concussion.” They sighed. “I’ll want to do a full scan when we get home, but for now, I think you’re fine.”

“Oh. Thanks?” This was not how Mako thought this conversation would go. Maybe the disorientation was supposed to be payback for confusing them earlier. It didn’t sound like Cass, but he hadn’t been doing a good job of predicting their behavior so far.

“Uh-huh,” Cass said. They shifted their weight, suddenly awkward. “And, uh… do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

There it was. He didn’t want to talk about it, not really, but he figured he owed Cass an explanation. At least then they’d know why they were avoiding him.

The words spilled out of him, the accidental Fogging and the way Rigor pulled away from him and the fact that he’d possibly been in love with them for years. He tried to keep that part vague, to preserve at least some semblance of dignity, but with the way he kept backtracking and correcting himself he didn’t know if Cass was getting any of it in the first place. They certainly weren’t saying anything. They only nodded along to Mako’s increasingly incoherent rambling.

When he’d covered everything even remotely relevant, he fell silent, tugging at the ends of his hair. He would have thought talking that long would have aggravated his headache, but if anything he felt a bit better. Just in time to have his heart shattered.

Cass stared at the ceiling, mouth moving silently. Finally they looked back at Mako. “So you’ve been subconsciously Fogging things when you feel strong emotions?”

“Yeah.” Mako’s grip on his hair tightened.

They nodded as if they had put something together. “And… you’re in love with me?” They didn’t sound disgusted, at least, but Mako couldn’t say what they did sound like.

Naturally, he tried to backpedal. “I mean, love is a strong word. I like you and I think you’re hot, but does that equal love? Can any of us really say what love is?”

Cass rested their head in their hand. “I’m an idiot,” they mumbled. They lifted their head. “Last question. Is it all right if I kiss you?”

“Uh,” Mako said. “What?”

Cass groaned. “I know I probably deserve this, but… Okay. Listen. I’m in love with you, or whatever word you want to use for it, and being smooth clearly isn’t working out but if you don’t mind I would like to kiss you without the evil brainfog from hell.”

Mako tried to reset his entire understanding of the world and his place in it. “Oh. Yeah. Good.”

“Great,” they agreed. They hung back a moment longer before leaning in to kiss him.

It wasn’t as intense as before, the threat of zombification and death no longer hanging over their heads. Cass’ lips hadn’t gotten any less chapped, and while they were an active participant this time, Mako suspected they didn’t have much experience with kissing people.

Once again, none of that mattered. They were alive, and Cass was kissing him. He hadn’t even realized how resigned he’d been to unhappiness until the possibility of a future with them presented itself. He pressed closer to them, trying to convince himself that this was real. They were warm, and felt like safety.

Some length of time had presumably passed by the time they broke apart. Cass couldn’t meet his eye. “We should probably let everyone know Rigor is dead, I guess.” Mako noted with pride how flushed their cheeks were.

“Make Aria do it,” he suggested. “We just saved the galaxy, we deserve to sit around and do nothing for the rest of our lives.”

Cass’ eyes went wide. “Shit, I need to tell Aria I’m not dead. And probably apologize to her.”

“You thought you were about to die and you decided the last thing you would do would be pissing Aria off?” Mako was definitely not jealous. That would be stupid. Cass had just said they were in love with him.

“It’s not like I went into it planning to piss her off.” They rubbed the back of their neck. “And, well. I was afraid if I called you, I’d lose my nerve.”

“That’s stupid,” Mako said, knowing he was lighting up but forging ahead with the scolding anyway. “You should have called me so I could come help you.”

“I mean, I know that now.” Cass gave a half-shrug.

Mako shoved them. “No, seriously, no more self-sacrificing. You have to let me save you.” He noticed their pinched expression and scrambled to lighten the mood. “I mean, unless it’s a publicity event or something. Then I’d be happy to throw you under the bus.”

They laughed half-heartedly. “Trust me, if we want to talk self-sacrifice, you’re not getting away that easily. I think that argument can wait, though. We still have a while before we get back to Counterweight, and while this thing wasn’t exactly designed to be lived in, I’ve got a cot set up in one of the less important corridors. You can go lie down if you want.”

“Great, let’s go,” Mako said.

Cass glanced at the console, shrugged, and led him to what was honestly a pretty sad looking cot. Mako still made a show of getting comfortable on it before patting the space next to him for them to lie down. They rolled their eyes, smiling, and did so.

Unlike that time all those years ago, Mako didn’t fall asleep immediately. He lay there, listening to Cass’ heartbeat and the reassuring steadiness of their breathing, and thought about a future he could look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise this was an everyone lives and mako doesn't have rigorbrain au all along


End file.
